Is Europe’s Little Ice Age a myth?

The authors challenge the historical consensus of a European Little Ice Age (mid-14th to early 19th century), asserting that temperature reconstructions for Central Europe, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England show no evidence of sustained trends or structural breaks until around 1900. They attribute the appearance of climate cycles to the 'Slutsky effect,' where moving averages applied to random 'white noise' data create spurious oscillations. The paper further contends that anecdotal evidence often cited to support the Little Ice Age—such as the freezing of the Thames or the collapse of Viking settlements in Greenland—can be explained by non-climatic factors like infrastructure, economics, and competition.

• Statistical analysis of temperature reconstructions for Central Europe, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England indicates that mean temperatures from the late middle ages to the late 19th century remained almost constant, with no evidence of autocorrelation, trends, or structural breaks.
• The perceived existence of the Little Ice Age is likely a result of the 'Slutsky effect,' where the standard climatological practice of using moving averages to smooth random data creates the false appearance of irregular cycles and trends.
• While sustained shifts are absent, the authors identify specific decades of notably poor summer weather using a Bayesian changepoint procedure, specifically highlighting the 1690s and 1810s.
• Common anecdotal evidence for the Little Ice Age is attributed to other causes: the freezing of the Thames is linked to the design of Old London Bridge; the decline of English grape growing to comparative advantage after 1152; and the demise of Greenland's Viking settlements to a combination of trade, competition, and resource issues.

APA

Kelly, M., & Gráda, C. Ó. (2015). Is Europe’s Little Ice Age a myth? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/is-europes-little-ice-age-a-myth/

Chicago

Kelly, Morgan, and Cormac Ó Gráda. Is Europe’s Little Ice Age a myth? World Economic Forum, 2015. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/is-europes-little-ice-age-a-myth/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Kelly |first1=Morgan |last2=Gráda |first2=Cormac Ó |title=Is Europe’s Little Ice Age a myth? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=30 March 2015 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/is-europes-little-ice-age-a-myth/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{kelly2015europes, author = {Kelly, Morgan and Gráda, Cormac Ó}, title = {{Is Europe’s Little Ice Age a myth?}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2015}, month = mar, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/is-europes-little-ice-age-a-myth/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }